It doesn’t surprise me that police were slow to enter the school when the shooter was active, they were just average cops, and in 90% of similar cases average cops will act in that same way: Not put their own lives at too much risk for people they don’t know.
Average cops typically wait for SWAT teams to arrive, they’ve got little training to confront active shooters and almost alway zero experience in dealing with such a threat.

If you think every cop should be hero material you’ve been watching too much TV.

A similar situation occurs in the military, where 90% of a units combat effectiveness is produced by only 10% of it members, even most trained soldier are more interested in surviving than in becoming hero’s.

So, while it’s an easy option to pour scorn and blame on the first cops at the scene, the facts are that it’s only a tiny fraction of the population that’s actually hero material including a small fraction of cops, and I doubt any of those condemning those cops would themselves have the balls to go into a building to confront a shooter unless to protect their own.

The problem at Parkland was not the cops outside, it was the factors that led to Cruz having both the inclination and the ability to perpetrate the carnage.

The claim that citizens need unfettered access to firearms to protect themselves against tyrannical government is just bull sh!t that ignores the fact that there are many functional democracies around the world that are stable and require citizens to has licenses to own firearms, the licensing process working to keep such weapons out of the hands of unstable people like Cruz, but allows those of more stable character to own such weapons.

No self-respecting man with a gun would have stood outside the school like a little coward while kids were being murdered inside. While the cops were cowering in fear, unarmed male teachers were dying trying to save the kids.

It’s routine for spree shooters to give up or kill themselves at the mere presence of someone who can shoot back. Their power fantasies are based on being able to murder anyone they choose without opposition, and go all to hell as soon as bullets start coming their way.

Then at least 90% of men aren’t self respecting by your measure. Anyone can have wet dreams about being a hero, but if actually put in the situation of risking their own life, most people find they’re not as brave as they think they are.

Again, unarmed male teachers died trying to save those kids. Men who’d been disarmed by the cops you adore so much. Men who, if they had been armed like so many people are in Florida, would most definitely have been shooting back rather than cowering in fear.

You’re not understanding human nature then, those teachers were the guardians of their students, they acted as adults do for their own when those kids sort guidance and protection from them, there was a strong a personal link that existed. If the cops outside had close personal links with those inside they would have acted far more aggressively to protect them.

“Then at least 90% of men aren’t self respecting by your measure.” You take a poll on that?

I’m not brave enough to charge an armed shooter–especially if “liberal” State-f*ckers have disarmed me–but then I admit my cowardice and haven’t applied to be a cop or taken the oath or pinned on the badge.

“No self-respecting man with a gun would have stood outside the school like a little coward while kids were being murdered inside.”

I wonder Edward…because under Ohio law and also Federal law aren’t schools “gun free zones”? If a citizen Concealed Carry license holder outside the school heard shots/screams and decided to enter said school with pistol drawn hasn’t he/she just seriously violated Federal (& likely State law)? You better be very sure you haven’t somehow misinterpreted the situation some how. Or maybe even if you didn’t; they could still prosecute you. That’s why gun free zones are sometimes called “victim disarmament zones”

BTW, I actually think the licensing system up here in Canada makes a lot of sense, but it does little to stop the left from demanding ever more restrictions and bans. Which is why it will never happen in America: Americans know they would just be giving the left another inch toward total confiscation.

And the shooter in this case would have been unable to buy a gun if your glorious cops had done their job and got him convicted for the things he did that were reported to them. The system would have worked, if the cops weren’t utterly incompetent.

I think the background check system is a system that’s bound to fail, and getting convictions with the intension of stopping people from owning weapons is not a system I think even the NRA would endorse.

I work in the world of Risk, Andrew. In that world, we plan prior to the event occurring and train people to respond effectively, so that if and when the event occurs, they act to mitigate the impact and limit damage done.

Rand’s question, as he has experience in my world and written books on the matter, is forward thinking. Rand is saying he takes responsibility for his own self-defense, and doesn’t rely on the government to provide that defense.

Your response, Andrew, seems to only consider actions to take after the event is already happening.

Leland, so what planning “prior to the event occurring and train people to respond effectively, so that if and when the event occurs, they act to mitigate the impact and limit damage done.”

Can we confidently say was put in place to deal with an attack by an armed assailant or assailants at Stoneman Douglas High? Do you honestly think that the risks to an officer confronting the assailant/s were adequately studied and planned for?
I don’t.

This whole “training officers to go in immediately in the event of an active shooter” is bull shit, it’s a politically expedient response without any regard to the welfare of those expected to undertake such impromptu action.

“But let us say you are 100% correct. Officers can not be trained to engage bad guys in the act of doing bad things.”

Lets get it right, I’m saying that in situations in which there is an active shooter most individuals will not breach and go into a situation in which they do not have a considerable advantage over the shooter. That the instinct of self preservation will prevent them. If their loved ones are in danger that changes the equation. That instinct is common to all of us, but that is MOST individuals, the exceptions will be found amongst people with real experience (eg. experienced SWAT team members and soldiers who’ve done it before) and young alpha males.

“Rand is saying he takes responsibility for his own self-defense, and doesn’t rely on the government to provide that defense.“

Yeah, so? What’s that got to do with the policeman going into the shooter situation without knowing what he needs to no to reduce the risk to himself?

Americans know they would just be giving the left another inch toward total confiscation.

Yup, just incrementalism with the goal of confiscating all guns but designed to punish innocent people until that happens. What you don’t see is the only really legal way to do this, efforts to amend the constitution.

Not surprising its from the same people who threatened member of the electoral college, used violence to stop people from attending the inauguration, use violence to prevent people from using the freedom to assemble, nominate judges with a judicial philosophy of ignoring the law, and support a coup against the sitting President.

It’s a claim I heard from a senior US Army officer, “90% of a units combat effectiveness is produced by only 10% of it members,” plenty of his men were capable of firing on the enemy, but rare was the soldier who would take the time to place his shots (actually kill the enemy) while exposed to their fire, and given the ratio of rounds fired to kills made in modern combat it doesn’t surprise me.

Sorry I don’t have a link but I’ll have a look for something more solid.

So you are claiming to quote some person you don’t know, who looks like someone else that incorrectly uses the Pareto Principle. And even assuming you have the quote correct, lack of combat effectiveness is not the same as being a coward. You can be entirely brave and lack combat effectiveness.

However, combat effectiveness does include leadership and training on how to respond, and it seems the Broward County Sheriff’s Department is lacking combat effectiveness. That’s why the Sheriff needs to do the right thing, for once, and resign. Fortunately, the Coral Springs and Sunrise police were willing to engage.

Actually, in the Parkland shooting, more than 10% of the officers that arrived on the scene moved towards the sound of gun fire and engaged the shooter. So the statistical straw man is burned down by what really happened at the scene. Unfortunately, when you have to wait for competent officers to come to your rescue, it may be too late.

“Actually, in the Parkland shooting, more than 10% of the officers that arrived on the scene moved towards the sound of gun fire and engaged the shooter.”
Now you’re making things up, Cruz had left the scene by the time those officers arrived, no one “engaged the shooter”.

Now you’re making things up, Cruz had left the scene by the time those officers arrived, no one “engaged the shooter”.

So why was the deputy standing outside behind his car? Oh yeah, they wouldn’t know if the shooter was inside or not, so they went inside.

If the cops outside had close personal links

So you are claiming now the Sheriff’s deputy, who worked in the school and knew the students and teachers, didn’t have personal links to anyone inside? If so, then it is another reason the Sheriff should just resign.

He should resign for his lack of leadership in having deputies willing to do their jobs, and then going on a national television show to blame a representative of their NRA for his failure to do his fucking job. He is a disgrace to his profession.

“He should resign for his lack of leadership in having deputies willing to do their jobs,”

But police not going it immediately they arrive at the scene is pretty normal, that’s what happened in Vegas, they didn’t breach until at least half an hour after the gunman had shot himself, and I’m pretty sure that’s been the normal result in most cases of mass killings, the gunman shoots himself or is only killed when leaving the scene by police when there is little risk to themselves or when they can take him down from a distance. Are you going to insist all the police sheriffs and commanders on those occasions should also resign?

“and then going on a national television show to blame a representative of their NRA”

Here I think you’ve got a good argument, his job is to do his job, not preach about how it’s the fault of the gun laws.

He got political – which I suspect is why the right are targeting him far more than they have other commanders who’s men held back.

It was not any of the other schools that have suffered from mass shootings over the last 30 years either, and in only one of the shootings in which there were more than 3 deaths was the shooter taken down by police while they were still killing, in all of the other cases the shooters killed themselves or left the scene before police could intervene.

Expecting police to take out active shooters and save lots of lives isn’t realistic, expecting someone with no experience in dealing with this sort of combat situation to step up and be a hero is, in over 90% of cases, also not realistic.

There are plenty of stories of shootings being stopped by someone simply engaging with the suspected shooter. Hell, there is a movie playing in theaters in which 3 unarmed military trained men on holiday stopped a massacre by acting immediately.

When you start with a statistical population that only includes failures, you will only find examples of failures to respond.

Andrew_W, I think you miss the point when you say that neither police from the outside nor teachers inside would defend the students. I’m not talking about defending the students. I’m talking about allowing teachers to defend themselves. A teacher with a pistol and a small amount of training, facing certain death, is going to try to defend him or her self. None of this 90% won’t shoot BS. All of the motives you cite for someone not going into a building where a shooter is doing his thing are going to be foremost on the mind of an armed teacher. And one with any training will have an advantage over these punks who, for the most part, have no training. Will it be a decisive advantage? Who knows? But it will at least give the teacher a fighting chance.

MfK, earlier I said “those teachers were the guardians of their students, they acted as adults do for their own when those kids sort guidance and protection from them, there was a strong a personal link that existed. If the cops outside had close personal links with those inside they would have acted far more aggressively to protect them.”

So, while like a lot of people I struggle with the idea of arming teachers, I’d fear the guns getting into the wrong hands, the teacher getting out of the habit of carrying after the first 10 or 20 years with no call to use it, accidental discharge, teachers losing their cool with the kids and overreacting.
Careful selection and training would minimize such risks.

I can’t deny that the teachers are the people in the right place and the strongest natural motivation to act aggressively against an active shooter.

I recall hearing something like that in relation to Vietnam. I doubt it was true then but it certainly isn’t now.

We have a volunteer force with high unit cohesion, which we didn’t have in Vietnam. Our military willing takes risks that put their lives on the line every single day and they do so with amazing composure, aside from all of the swearing.

I’ve watched nearly every documentary and reality show set in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 18 years and not a single one showed American troops cowering in fear, which is something that would have been included considering the slant of many of these programs.

I don’t think many military people are concerned about being heroes but it just happens when they do their job.

There was a large set of completely fradulent ‘studies’ in WW-II by a PhD who claimed that US soldiers wouldn’t fire on the enemy unless they had an automatic weapon like the Thompson or 1917 (BAR) or 1919 Brownings. The author of the studies claimed he and his crew were on site, recording data at many battles, and the Army took him very seriously. Decades later his claimes turned out to be fabricated. He probably never even left his office.

The real problem we had, based on combat reports, was the opposite. It’s not that soldiers wouldn’t fire their weapons, it’s that they would hose down everything and wouldn’t stop.

and given the ratio of rounds fired to kills made in modern combat it doesn’t surprise me.

Its called cover fire, sometime directed to an area before the target can be seen. Our modern military has no qualms dusting people trying to kill them and they do a great job of it when allowed to by ROE.

Coming in late, here, but the original source for that 90/10 rule is Grossman’s On Killing.

Unfortunately, it has come to light in recent years that Grossman fudged his numbers and methods in order to reach the conclusion that he wanted: to claim that people are naturally civilized, and have to be taught to harm each other (with a secondary claim that eeeebil video games are turning kids into sociopaths via desensitization).

If you’re correct about 90% of cops, then you’ve put forward an excellent argument for firearms ownership: the cops can’t be trusted to protect me and mine, so therefor I have to do it myself.

In my case, I know the police won’t respond to an intruder in my home in any sort of timely fashion, become my local police will not teleport, and that is a fact. If, on the other hand, they try coming by car, they are about half an hour away in good weather (I live in a rural area). So obviously, if I have an intruder, the person who has to deal with it is me.

And that brings me to your point about “Other democracies” doing gun control. That is a non-sequitur, because reality is different. There are vastly more guns here, and more importantly, those foreign examples used registration lists. You simply cannot do that unless the registration lists exist, and they do not. An enormous percentage of guns are unregistered (My state, like many, does not even have gun registration, let alone licensing) so going the route Canada went or the UK went is simply and literally impossible. And, thanks to the example of those uses of registration lists, many millions of people like me will never, no matter the law, register all their guns (your side has proven registration cannot be trusted).

It’s also well worth pointing out that areas of the US with the strictest gun control also have the highest rates of gun violence. And, an enormous amount of gun violence is committed by felons, who can’t legally own guns anyway. Sure, you could go full-authoritarian and put in place draconian penalties for innocent gun ownership, because that approach has worked oh so well to solve the nation’s drug problem (and drugs, unlike guns, are a consumable commodity, so the supply chain with drugs is far more vulnerable than that of guns).

At best, America can make some changes, such as actually making sure that the paperwork is done on criminals so they don’t pass background checks (as has happened with several mass killers) and taking into account mental problems and use of drugs known to cause homicidal episodes, but aside from those small changes, the oft-blathered-about “gun control” is a fool’s gambit, because it simply cannot work.

What can work, though, is allowing a few teachers with the inclination to undergo training and selection, and to carry concealed on campus. It’s no coincidence that almost all mass killings occur in designated gun-free zones. And, an armed teacher, unlike (if your argument is correct) a police officer, does have the personal relation to the students to at least try to save their lives (and their own).

Over here guns aren’t registered, legal gun owners have a license, the license is a lot like a drivers license, in appearance and function.

The advantage of gun buyers needing to show a license is that it gets away from unreliable background checks. There’s no need for the requirements to have a license to be any more stringent than the current laws restricting gun ownership.

Certainly immediately bringing in a license won’t suddenly take guns out of the wrong hands, it just makes it easier to identify and keep track of who are the wrong hands. Compare it to a driver eligibility system in which anyone can drive a car until they’ve been shown to be unfit to drive a car vs pass your driving test and you can drive a car. As far a driver eligibility goes, which makes more sense?

Once most of those countries that now have firearms licensing systems did not have firearms licensing systems, the transition was made, same could apply to the US.

“It’s also well worth pointing out that areas of the US with the strictest gun control also have the highest rates of gun violence.”

I think that’s putting the carriage in front of the horse.

What’s happening now in the US is that any change is resisted because “Second Amendment”. Perhaps it might be better for legal gun owners to be at the forefront of change rather than end up in the situation in which the anti-gun lobby is so strong because of so much bloodshed that gun owners have very little say in the form that future gun laws take.

Port Arthur resulted in such a strong emotional reaction in Australia that the gun laws were changed drastically because that event supplied so much ammunition (didn’t care to avoid the pun) to the anti-gun lobby that they won it all, the same could happen in the US if gun owners don’t get more proactive in law reforms that favor what they want in allowing them to own the guns they want and also denying guns to criminals and the mentally unstable.

Over here guns aren’t registered, legal gun owners have a license, the license is a lot like a drivers license, in appearance and function.

The advantage of gun buyers needing to show a license is that it gets away from unreliable background checks. There’s no need for the requirements to have a license to be any more stringent than the current laws restricting gun ownership.

What you are saying is that if the Kiwi government decided, for whatever reason, to round up all the guns, they would know who owned them, and where they lived. And I’m sure you comfort yourself thinking “That could never happen here.” Many, hundreds of millions, have comforted themselves with that thought to their graves, often en masse.

If things got to the point at which the government was rounding up guns, this country would either no longer be a democracy, or if it were still a democracy, the gun owning section of the public would have long since have lost, with a substantial majority of Kiwi’s in favor of no guns in private hands.

As it is you’re a bit wrong in that the government does not know what guns I and most other license holders own, they only know I can legally own guns.

The advantage of gun buyers needing to show a license is that it gets away from unreliable background checks.

Wut?

Over here, you certainly wouldn’t get any kind of firearms license without a background check. The same background check for a concealed carry license is applied whenever someone buys a handgun, buying online, and in some states, for all firearms purchases.

The only thing unreliable about background checks is that sometimes government agencies don’t update databases as they are required to. Licensing wont change that.

the same could happen in the US if gun owners don’t get more proactive in law reforms that favor what they want in allowing them to own the guns they want and also denying guns to criminals and the mentally unstable.

You really don’t know anything about the history of gun regulations in the USA or who is/isn’t allowed to own guns.

Hang on, it looks to me like there’s no easy system that enables vendors to check if the purchaser in a private sale is legally allowed to buy – and that in many states the sale must go through a dealer (a requirement the NRA hates), with our licensing system the purchaser presents his license to the vendor and that’s it.

Andrew, a huge part of the issue I have is trust. Already, gun licensing databases in the US (some states have them) have been put to nefarious use by the left, such as posting the names and addresses online, including a handy mapping feature.

I cannot and will not trust the government with such knowledge (which can be obtained, as in the above case, via a FOIA) or power, because the time may well come when they become confiscatory. And if that happens, that’s when we’ll need guns more than ever, because that kind of power grab can only be countered with armed force.

That said, I’m actually personally in favor of the principle of licensing; a certification of some training and proficiency along with legal ability to purchase a gun. The glaring problem is the trust issue. Plus, of course, the fact that in a country awash with guns (and because of the sheer number of guns in the US, that will always be the case, no matter the law) that licensing is rather pointless; anyone who wants a gun can get one easy enough, just like in Chicago where a recent study showed that 3/4 of gun crimes were committed by felons (who can’t legally own or posses a gun).

I am against any form of training certification in order to own a gun. This is often just a regressive tax or an effort to place large time requirement hurdles in place to punish people.

The only important thing is whether or not you know how to safely operate and handle a gun. People who go through the expense of buying a gun are most likely going to put in the effort to use one correctly. If there was some testing needed, it should be a free internet based multiple choice test. I’d just have firearms dealers provide lists of youtube videos to watch to people when the buy guns.

I always count these things on a per capita basis, and I was being sarcastic to McGehee, in the US the norm is that police do not go out and put their lives at serious risk in the course of their normal duties, if they did their mortality rate would be far higher than the 1 in 20,000 deaths/year risk due to homicide that US police officers face.
1 in 20,000/yr is about the same risk as forestry workers and fishermen.

I thought I should check the figures for forestry workers and fishermen since I was just guestimating. In fact those occupations are about 20 times more dangerous than policing, along with several other occupations including roofers, steel workers and farmers and farm managers (the last doesn’t surprise me, having been run down a couple of times by cows upset at being parted from their calves).https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf

I suspect you would find that most fishermen, farmers, construction workers, and lumberjacks would have no qualms attempting to stop an active shooter. Most men, and many women, would have no qualms about it either as long as they had the one tool that equalizes them with the shooter.

But have you noticed how these things don’t happen at NFL or NHL games? Some people wouldn’t let not having a gun stop them from fighting back. Fighting back prevents the shooter(s) from having the freedom to do what they want.

Fighting back with whatever is at hand is the mentality we need to instill in our youth and society at large in order to combat active shooters and terrorist attacks.

This is why law enforcement, and civilians, need to be able to quickly engage active shooters. The shooter’s attention quickly changes to the person fighting back.

Uniformed armed law enforcement personnel have training. If the officers were trained to stay outside and wait for backup in situations like this, I shall not fault them for acting according to their training.

The officers responding to Columbine did just that — wait for SWAT backup, but Jerry Pournelle, especially, was as much as calling them cowards for not going inside. I strongly disagreed with that position at that time, but I have changed my mind in response to what was said about how law enforcement training has change in response to Columbine.

The guys doing this are not terrorists trained in those Afghan Al Qaeda-run camps. They are not old guys like the Las Vegas or the Congressman Scalise shooters who have had a long lifetime of practice with guns. They are angry, confused, suffering from forms of major mental illness in cases, not-very-bright young men. The idea is that the training of most law enforcement officers would allow them to readily get “the drop” on these shooters.

An officer entering a school building has information in the form of gunshots as well as where students and teachers are running from as to where the shooter is. A school building offers plenty of cover in the form of classrooms and corners in hallways. The shooter is not waiting for law enforcement in a covered ambush position as with the Orlando night club. Rather, the officer has the initiative and advantage of surprise over the shooter.

Tell me those officers were acting according to their training and I have no criticism of their actions. Tell me they are trained to pursue in these situations and I fault them severely.

We train fighter pilots on how to resond to a wide variety of engagement scenarios. I don’t think it’s “communist” to teach what works.

The shooter is shooting (thus the moniker). From that we can conclude that he’s focused on his targets and probably deaf as a post because virtually none of these shooters wear hearing protection, or if they do, they’re deaf as a post because they’re wearing hearing protection. You could sneak up on them on a galloping horse.

If the shooter does realize you’re sneaking up behind him to give him a mega wedgie, great! You retreat and then you’ve got his entire attention and all the kids can run out the back while he’s trying to figure out if you fired five shots or six, or if you have one of those seven shot revolvers, or if you normally keep one chamber empty, or if you’ve got a semi-automatic, in which case you might have a six shot, or a seven shot, or a nine shot, or an eleven shot, or a thirteen shot, unless you changed magazines, or perhaps have two guns. Unless you maybe are serving as bait for another cop who has…

Andrew, there are two things to note here. First, there are a lot of police who do act to save lives. For example, when police from another district (Coral Springs) came in, they immediately went in.

When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

With direction from the Broward deputies who were outside, Coral Springs police soon entered the building where the shooter was. New Broward County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, and two of those deputies and an officer from Sunrise, Florida, joined the Coral Springs police as they went into the building.

For law enforcement, the rules of engagement with an active shooter clearly put an officer’s life at risk. But eliminating the threat dramatically reduce the carnage and loss of life.

“That’s what didn’t happen in Columbine,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which helps set policy for police departments around the country. “After that, the thinking in policing dramatically changed. If you hear gunfire, you are trained to take action. If he knew what was going on in there and he chose not to go in, that is contrary to the policy of every major police department that I know of.”

[…]

The department’s policy on officers engaging active shooters says “if real time intelligence exists the sole deputy or team of deputies may enter the area and/or structure to preserve life.”

Israel, in an interview Friday with The Miami Herald, said all Broward deputies undergo training and are instructed to aggressively try and confront a live shooter. He said Peterson’s inaction made him “sick to his stomach” and that the only situation in which an officer would be justified in not advancing toward a dangerous situation is if it were an “absolute suicide,” or if a place was known to be booby-trapped.

Jeff Bell, the head of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association, echoed Israel, saying “Every second we wait to go inside, there are going to be more lives lost.”

In other words, not a bit of support for your position there.

The problem at Parkland was not the cops outside, it was the factors that led to Cruz having both the inclination and the ability to perpetrate the carnage.

The primary factor is “democracy”. If only we had taken away Cruz’s (and 340 million other peoples’) freedom, we could have prevented this.

The claim that citizens need unfettered access to firearms to protect themselves against tyrannical government is just bull sh!t that ignores the fact that there are many functional democracies around the world that are stable and require citizens to has licenses to own firearms, the licensing process working to keep such weapons out of the hands of unstable people like Cruz, but allows those of more stable character to own such weapons.

And how many of those functional democracies are going to stay that way? We’ve already seen a lot of backsliding in the US, particularly from people who want to take away rights like the Second Amendment. Doesn’t make me want to comply.

I’m having a hard time not concluding the mistakes by the FBI were incompetence rather then malice. After all we have seen of the FBI, it is admiration of the previous administration; what’s the difference between the motive of Fast and Furious and ignoring the Parkland shooter? Both involve ignoring known dangerous people until they shoot some people and then calling for banning of firearms.

The shooter even called authorities via 911 for help around Thanksgiving. The FBI and local authorities simply looked the other way, while everyone else in the community feared he would do exactly what he did. Tougher gun laws wouldn’t have helped get this kid the help he needed.

Because you’re the one demanding that the people should be disarmed, while admitting that cops are incompetents and cowards and will do nothing to protect those disarmed people unless they have overwhelming firepower on their side.

Do you really not understand how absurd your position looks? If you truly believe what you say, you should be arguing for getting rid of the useless cops and arming the people: oddly enough, something many on the left used to consider a good idea decades ago.

Firstly I’m not “demanding that the people should be disarmed” your claim that that is what I’m suggesting is simply a reflection of your own preconceptions.

Nor am I claiming that “cops are incompetents and cowards”, I’m pointing out that they act like normal human beings and place a high value on their own lives.

“If you truly believe what you say, you should be arguing for getting rid of the useless cops and arming the people.”

Your ability to misrepresent my comments is . . not surprising in someone blindly committed to an idealogical position.

I’ve suggested a method for making it harder for criminals and mentally unstable people to get hold of firearms, a method used in almost all Western countries with success. Not a system for taking firearms off of reasonable people.

“I’m pointing out that they act like normal human beings and place a high value on their own lives.”

Police are expected to place the lives of those they protect first. That’s how they are trained, and that is the expectation the citizenry places on them. Perhaps it is misplaced, but I don’t think it should be. I have a niece who, with her boyfriend, volunteer for an emergency rescue team in Tennessee. They got scuba-certified, and are enormously physically fit. And the experiences they’ve had are hair-raising, and they put their lives on the line with frightening regularity – and absolutely voluntarily. To them, it isn’t even a big deal. They will tell what happened on a particular outing, but only if asked. And they cut it off as soon as they can. That gig isn’t for a desire for glory. It is the spirit of taking care of neighbors that I’ve found all throughout Tennessee. When all of the neighbors do it, none of them have to spend much time doing it. That is the real America.

MfK. For your niece and her boyfriend the risk is tiny compared to the risk of going head to head, one on one, with a gunman, the realistic risk she faces, because of her skill and training, is probably much less than 1 in a ten thousand of death. For a police officer in a one on one shootout the risk is closer to 1 chance in 2 of getting killed.

Andrew_W, you have no idea what you’re talking about. My niece goes into situations involving armed people, and she’s not armed. She and her boyfriend also do rescues in flood swollen rivers, in the dark, where the odds of being killed are very high. So stuff it, pal. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

“My niece goes into situations involving armed people, and she’s not armed.”
If that means she finds lost and injured hunters, so what?

“She and her boyfriend also do rescues in flood swollen rivers, in the dark, where the odds of being killed are very high.”
Great, but how often are people who do her job actually killed, I don’t question her courage, I do question your implication that her job is even remotely as dangerous as going into a building where you know someone or more than just someone is killing people and who will certainly kill you if they’re given the chance. Often, as history demonstrates, such people have little regard to their own safety, they care little about dieing.
If you don’t get the difference between SAR work and taking on a determined killer in a building at close range who’s as well or better armed than you are it is not I that doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

People around here watch far too many Wild West programs, fictional police dramas or action movies.

Real life isn’t fn like that. You make a mistake or even if you don’t make a mistake in a building going against someone who will certainly kill you if they’re given the chance and you’re fucking dead. Your wife’s a widow, your kids have lost their father.

Fuck I’m sick of armchair hero’s, no surprises that Trump also thinks he’s hero material. And no doubt all the hero’s here also think they would have been hero’s if they’d been in Germany in the late ’30’s and early ’40’s, fighting against the NAZI’s, saving Jews, not being carried along by the fascist nationalism.

==> Andrew
I’m going to ignore the specious diversion tactics, and make one observation. The logical conclusion of what you write is that police protection is an invalid concept, as is military protection of a country. If what you say is true, then no human being would put himself in harms way to defend someone else. So we might as well disband the police, and the military.

As to the question of how to prevent school shootings, do you have a proposal of any kind?

As to the question of how to prevent school shootings, do you have a proposal of any kind?

You will never reduce the possibility of school shootings to zero without unreasonable restrictions on freedom (What’s unreasonable I hear you say, unreasonable is what reasonable people think is unreasonable.)

In most Western countries people have to present evidence that they’re responsible and not mentally unstable before they can own firearms (this can take to form of interviews with family and friends). in the US the authorities have to demonstrate that they’re a criminal or mentally unstable to stop them owning firearms. In the US the NRA and others in the “pro-gun” would see those requirements as a breach of peoples rights to own guns.

There are lots of protected rights that can be stripped from an individual via due process. For example, you can be denied liberty and even life via due process.

And I don’t think anyone here said a thing about the New Zealand system, or anyone else’s system. Most of us only care about our system, and don’t give a damn about your system. You’re the outsider trying to tell others how they must live a life like yours.

So the cops and FBI aren’t going to do anything and Andrew W wants to restrict gun ownership? Do I have that correct? So I guess you just “die in place”? Sounds like the Australian policy.
We had, a few months ago, a case where a farmer on a rural property was broken in to by a knife wielding scumbag in the small hours of the morning. Farmer waves unloaded .22 rifle and called the cops who took away the .22 and threatened the farmer with charges for “breaching the conditions of his licence”.
Australia’s gun laws are just an excuse for oppressing the citizens, although that word should really be “subjects” in this convict derived, freedom hating hellhole.

Two women officers responding (going towards) a crime in progress. Unfortunately, it was a trap and the cops unarmed, so the killer had free reign. It was only after the first cop was killed that armed officers were called to the scene. The interesting thing was the use of a grenade. More evidence that banning things doesn’t prevent wanton criminals from possessing and using them. It just makes otherwise law abiding people criminals too, like the Australian farmer protecting his family.

Yes, police officers are exposed to life threatening danger every day through the normal course of doing business. Doesn’t make sense you think they are all cowards when it then comes to stopping an active shooter.

It used to be procedure for police to wait and then enter in force. But that was supposed to have changed a long time ago. Whether in an event like the one in FL or if it was a terrorist attack, the quickest way to end it with the smallest loss of life is to immediately engage the shooter(s).

This is why people are advocating for people being allowed to have guns in schools and other locations. The first responders are the people already there. This is also why people should be more educated in first aide.

That’s a meaningless statement, on most days they face only slightly more threat to their life

How do you know? How do they know?

Each interaction carries the probability that something could go sideways. They have to carry that knowledge into every interaction and conduct themselves accordingly.

As a trained and equipped law enforcement officer, they stand a very good chance of stopping active shooters, just like they do other types of shooters. Their chances are certainly better than 50/50 or whatever you said above.

Tell you what, Andrew, If you are ever in the US and get pulled over for speeding or something low level like that, watch the cops. How they behave; how they approach you

I guess your trying to emphasis the training police undergo to minimize the risks to their own lives as they go about their duties. Training which says ‘don’t get yourself into a position in which someone bad could get the drop on you’.
Now people here are saying Peterson should have ignored that training and gone into a situation about which he had little knowledge and where someone could have gotten the drop on him.

God forbid that a guy shooting up a school, going for a high score, should get the drop on a cop!

The careful procedures are there so a cop doesn’t get shot at before he can draw his weapon and kick into engagement mode. In the US, it is legal for in most states for anyone to engage a shooter with pretty much any weapon that comes to hand. None are required to wait for backup. An eight year old or an eighty year old could’ve taken him out with a machine gun and nobody in the legal system would raise an eyebrow, except of course for the same liberals who want to make gun ownership illegal.

Yeah, Australia’s gun laws are a mess, but just because you guys can’t manage a sensible licensing system (a knee-jerk reaction to Port Arthur) doesn’t mean that everyone else can’t manage sensible licensing systems. What’s wrong with the system in the Nordic countries, the Czech Republic and Switzerland?

Well, the Czechs and the Slovaks couldn’t even keep a country with two closely related ethnicities together. The Swiss and Danes do what they can to keep everybody else out….

Oh, wait, the subject is gun confiscation, not immigration.

Nevermind.

Here’s a hint– the US ain’t those countries, and never will be. Those are (or at least were) ethnically homogenous and “high truest” societies. And thanks to duplicitous Progressives, trust in the US is getting lower.

Progressives have shown that they can’t be trusted, and eventually most chumps smarten up.

We have multiple licensing systems that increase in stringency the more involvement you have in the firearms industry. For all of them, you have to pass a background check, which checks to see if there is any legal reason that you should not own a gun.

Each state also has its own gun laws regarding when a background check is required and any additional requirements for owning guns.

He really has outdone himself here. Law enforcement officers, extensively trained in not only law enforcement but in handgun use, should not be expected to responsibly use their weapons in the specific cases in which their use is called for because… they’re just regular joes who won’t act unless their own children are in danger.

It’s almost like Andrew thinks we’re some kind of communist dictatorship that assigns each person their career based on tests administered at age 14. Most cops are just near-sighted accountants who were mis-identified early on and happen to be wandering around with spiffy uniforms and neato strapped-on accoutrements like pointy things with triggers.

The universe is incapable of containing the quantity of snark that should be in this thread.

I think he already has the idea. I’m spelling it out clearly, since the prog refuses to understand the point the rest of us are making.

It should be noted that the NRA’s position of US national reciprocity for “shall issue” conceal and carry permit is the law in the Czech Republic. It is that position, among others, that Jake Tapper, among others, opposes.

The relevant point is that Stephen Willeford got behind cover and shot Kelley as he left the building, he did not go into the building to confront the shooter, and by not doing so he did not put his own live at that much higher level of risk.

No Andrew, you dumb idiot who writes about things you don’t know a damn thing about;

Stephen Willeford was a resident living next door to the church, who heard of the shooting from his daughter, grabbed his AR-15 from a locked safe, and ran barefoot to the church where he engaged the shooter.

Willeford was not a trained law enforcement officer already in the school with a weapon at his hip who, when the shooting started, went outside and hid, never engaging the shooter, even after other help arrived.

I was worried I’d misremembered. But:As Kelley left the church, he was confronted by and traded fire with local resident and former NRA firearms instructor Stephen Willeford,[12] armed with an AR-15 pattern semi-automatic rifle. Willeford had taken cover behind a truck across the street from the church and shot Kelley twice, once in the leg and in the upper left torso under his tactical gear.[13][14][15] Kelley, who had dropped his rifle upon the initial fire with Willeford, fired back with a handgun before fleeing in his Ford Explorer. Willeford fired one more round as Kelley sped north on FM 539.[16][17] He then noticed a pickup truck parked at the intersection of 4th St. and FM 539, driven by Johnnie Langendorff.

Perhaps you’ve a reference that says things happened differently? Or perhaps you just prefer to misrepresent what you’ve read.

People can go on and on about what the cops are supposed to do, what their training tells them to do, and, sure there are some rare individuals, who because of their nature are hero material, in the military they win medals like the VC or Medal Of Honor, but human nature overrules standard training when it comes to situations in which we perceive the risk to our lives is very high, to play Russian Roulette we need a very good reason.

People appear to be shocked and surprised that the first officer on the scene didn’t immediately go in, nor the other two who showed up soon after. I’m not, you want someone that selfless get someone young and dumb.

You play this scenario over and over again and on most occasions you’re going to get the same result: The first officer on the scene holding back with sweaty palms because they’ve no experience confronting active shooters and their human instinct puts self preservation above preservation of strangers. The equation does change though when those that are close to you are amongst those in peril, then once again it’s the instinct to protect our own that kicks in and gets us moving to protect them.

A few people have commented that if the police are so bad at going into an active shooter situation that’s all the more reason that people should have there own guns for self protection – so there Andrew!

Yes, your right, only I’ve not suggested taking guns off of legal owners, simply that a more comprehensive licensing system with screening of applicants would be more effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable than a system that relies on background checks for each purchase, the licensing system seems to work OK in most of the world.

The theory that lots of civilians with guns are what holds government in check is nonsense, in a functioning democratic system, as long as the system is designed well, the political factions within a country will balance out. It’s your vote, other peoples vote, free speech and open dialog that keep functioning democracies stable. If Johnny needs to use violence in an attack on the government to protect his freedom he’s more likely to be a Timothy McVeigh than a hero to most of the countrymen.

It’s probably worth discussing the process in which a stable democratic government switches to a dictatorship of one form or other, it has happened in the past. The leaders first move is never to take peoples guns away, his first move is to get most of the people behind him by creating or overstating the threat of an enemy, either foreign or domestic. Then gaining control of the media to pull more people in behind him and his great cause. In reality all those civilians and their guns are then going to be called upon to defend the country, under the great leaders control, which is what they do, being as patriotic as they are.

to play Russian Roulette we need a very good reason. you want someone that selfless get someone young and dumb.
So a uniformed police officer drawing his gun and entering a school that he is stationed at in response to gunshots heard inside is Russian roulette?
Only young and dumb people should be accepted to police academies?
We should not criticize behavior that allows innocent kids, or protective football coaches, to needlessly bleed out on a schoolroom floor?

Andrew, sometimes just engaging with you leaves me feeling like I need a shower.

Andrew, sometimes just engaging with you leaves me feeling like I need a shower.

For me engaging with you means having to deal with someone who’s either totally dishonest or a complete moron.

So a uniformed police officer drawing his gun and entering a school that he is stationed at in response to gunshots heard inside is Russian roulette?

If you ever find yourself in that situation (you won’t and never will) yes, that’s exactly how you’ll feel, you won’t know if there’s one shooter or two or three, every second you approach you’ll be terrified of that guy you didn’t see, who appears behind you blasting round after round into your back.

You’re a coward Kurt, too much of a coward to think about the real dangers you’re happy to demand that other people put themselves in.

Only young and dumb people should be accepted to police academies?

Here again you demonstrate you’re a moron, Yes Kurt, if policing consisted entirely of going into buildings and confronting armed gunmen I think lots of young and dumb officers without wifes and children would be a good idea.

We should not criticize behavior that allows innocent kids, or protective football coaches, to needlessly bleed out on a schoolroom floor?

You can criticize all you like from the safety of your home or office, but until you find yourself in the position of having to take action that will lead to you likely being the target of a maniac or maniacs with automatic rifles your criticism is nothing but ignorant hot air.

If you ever find yourself in that situation
If I’d taken an oath to protect and serve then entering the school is exactly what I would have done. If I’d been at all uncertain that I could have done that I would not have allowed myself to be stationed there in the first place.

Tell me Andrew, what oath do New Zealand police officers take?
“To attempt to protect and serve, unless there is danger, then to watch the perimeter closely.”

NZ police oath:
I, [name], swear that I will faithfully and diligently serve Her (or His) Majesty [specify the name of the reigning Sovereign], Queen (or King) of New Zealand, her (or his) heirs and successors, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. While a constable I will, to the best of my power, keep the peace and prevent offences against the peace, and will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, perform all the duties of the office of constable according to law. So help me God.”

And “to protect and serve” is a police motto, not usually an oath, I couldn’t find the oath for Broward County PD.

“NZ police oath:
I, [name], swear that I will faithfully and diligently serve Her (or His) Majesty [specify the name of the reigning Sovereign], Queen (or King) of New Zealand, her (or his) heirs and successors, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. While a constable I will, to the best of my power, keep the peace and prevent offences against the peace, and will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, perform all the duties of the office of constable according to law. So help me God.”

That’s very interesting. NZ (and I suspect Oz and the UK) police do NOT serve the people or the town…..they serve the Crown.

Not saying it’s a bad thing – but it’s hugely different.

So, Andrew, you might spend some time thinking about how differences like this can color your outlook in ways that you are unconscious of. It may inform you as to why your opinions about a totally different governmental outlook are often wholly invalid.

“People can go on and on about what the cops are supposed to do, what their training tells them to do, and, sure there are some rare individuals, who because of their nature are hero material, in the military they win medals like the VC or Medal Of Honor, but human nature overrules standard training when it comes to situations in which we perceive the risk to our lives is very high, to play Russian Roulette we need a very good reason. ”

Codswallop.

People go on about it because THAT is what is expected of our cops. By everybody…the public and their bosses.

“To Protect and to Serve”

To protect, Andrew – to protect.

That is why the cops are given the means and permission to use deadly force.

More directly, that’s what the guy was hired to do.. he was there for the sole purpose of protecting the students and faculty and given the tools (weapons) to do so. He was EXPECTED to rush the building and protect the students and faculty or die trying.

In addition, the Left has been telling us for decades that we don’t need weapons to protect ourselves because that’s what the cops are supposed to do. Chief Israel just gave a body blow to the Left.

Why do you people think Scot Peterson was assigned as “school resource officer”, was it because he was the most capable policeman available? The officer most able to aggressively take on an armed gunman? Not my expectation, my expectation is that the officers that get that job are the ones least suitable for more confrontational police work.

Why do you think he was armed while stationed at the school?
Why do you think he resigned 24 hours after the incident?
Why do you think right now he is being protected by four of his former-fellow officers?

“Why do you people think Scot Peterson was assigned as “school resource officer”, was it because he was the most capable policeman available? The officer most able to aggressively take on an armed gunman? Not my expectation, my expectation is that the officers that get that job are the ones least suitable for more confrontational police work.”

Well Chief Israel claims he expected Peterson to enter the building. He blames this all on Peterson.

Israel might be a scroundrel political hack, but he trashes your opinion.

To quote from Wikipedia (as some deem it a source): an emotion which “occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it”

There’s a cartoon on the IMAO blog (link at left) with the caption: “I just modified this weapon so that it can kill millions.” The picture is of an AR-15 labeled “Socialism.”

I’d have labeled it the broader “Statism,” in keeping with the studies of Prof. R. J. Rummel. The leading scholar of what he calls “Democide”–basically, governments whacking people–he estimates the body-count from statism to be somewhere between 150,000,000 to 350,000,000–in the 20th Century alone (and not counting war casualities. Yeah, that’s just who were want to disarm for.

We now have a statement from Scot Peterson that when he arrived at the 1200 building in response to a mistaken report of firecrackers being set off in its vicinity, he heard shots which he believed were originating from outside of the building. (This is certainly plausible given echos between buildings and real life acoustics vs. 20/20 hindsight and video game like expectations of a “radar display” awareness of the tactical situation many commentators seem to base their remarks on.) It should be possible to verify Officer Peterson’s statement based on his radio calls and on the verbal reports he gave to the other responding officers — and this would explain why they didn’t charge into the building when they first arrived.

If this checks out, then Officer Peterson appears to have responded by the book, and the real coward would seem to be Sheriff Israel for scapegoating Officer Peterson before the investigation was complete. At this point it is too early to apply that label to the president for his remarks, but it would be appropriate if he fails to apologize for commenting in the way he did before the facts were in. I expect we’ll hear some of his detractors joking that they do believe that President Trump would have run into the school unarmed at the sound of gunfire, just like he said, … as long as he too mistook the shots as originating from outside the building.

This is Time reporting of the resignation. According to that coverage, Israel suspended Peterson without pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation based on video and witness interviews, including interviewing Peterson. Peterson, in turn, decided to retire.

I’m not saying whether Peterson responded by the book or not, but what you say should be possible to investigate seems to be part of other things actually being used to investigate. But I will ask if Peterson did think the shooter was outside the school, why then did BSO (maybe Peterson or someone else that responded later) block EMS access to the building to provide aid?

Even if that is true, Peterson stayed by his car even after the shooting was over. You can’t tell where shots are coming from, if you just stay in one place and you certainly can’t protect anyone by doing so.

“Yes, it would appear that ‘liberals’ don’t want to stop school shootings.” Hey, never let a crisis go to waste! A few more school shootings, a few more ineffective gun laws, then a few more school shootings, and finally–“Liberal” Nirvana!–total disarmament of the tax serfs, Another victory for Big Brother!

“Everything I was trained on mass casualty events says they did the wrong thing,” he explained. “You don’t wait for the scene to be cleared. You go in immediately armed. Retrieve the victims. You can’t leave the victims laying there.”

“We were asking to go in. Asking the scene commander to go in. Why are we all standing around? Why are we not having patients to treat? Why are we not going into the building and retrieving these kids? The response every time was law enforcement did not clear the scene and would not allow medical personnel to go in,” he added.

The EMS worker believes that if he and other medical responders were allowed to enter the building as soon as they arrived, they could have saved more lives. He explained he was willing to risk his life to save the lives of others and was very frustrated over the situation.

The EMS worker stressed that he believes law enforcement made the decision they thought was best at the time, but emphasized that he believes it was the wrong one.

People can go on and on about what the cops are supposed to do, what their training tells them to do, and, sure there are some rare individuals, who because of their nature are hero material, in the military they win medals like the VC or Medal Of Honor, but human nature overrules standard training when it comes to situations in which we perceive the risk to our lives is very high, to play Russian Roulette we need a very good reason.

” Most police work is low risk and routine, very, very few police ever fire their weapons at people or find themselves under fire.”

The fact that most of their work is low risk doesn’t negate the requirement to operate immediately in high risk situations when they occur. Low risk work does not negate the fact that high risk work is also their responsibility.

That’s not even logical or relevant. How stupid can you be? The world wonders….

The fact that most of their work is low risk doesn’t negate the requirement to operate immediately in high risk situations when they occur.

It does limit their ability to operate immediately in high risk situations. And they know it.

If you want people who can go immediately into those high risk situations and keep the risk to their lives to a minimum and their risk of shooting the wrong people to a minimum do as you would with an Olympic athlete, hand pick them from the best and train them everyday. The police do have such people, they’re in specialist teams, they’re hand picked and do a huge amount of training during their paid work hours. But even those people operate in teams and take time to evaluate the situation rather than going in immediately.

I will just add that the Apollo astronauts had a very routine mission to and from the moon. But training is what saved the crew of Apollo 13. The military is mostly ‘hurry up and wait’, but it’s the training that helps them win.

I don’t think that is true. Even if cops aren’t getting murdered, they still face risk. The most risk comes from dealing with domestic dispute and mental illness calls, which is primarily what cops deal with every day.

I’ve suggested a method for making it harder for criminals and mentally unstable people to get hold of firearms, a method used in almost all Western countries with success. Not a system for taking firearms off of reasonable people.

The problem is that for the most part we already have systems in place to do what you suggest. Criminals use the black market. People with mental problems have to be given due process.

The guy in Las Vegas would have passed any system in place to buy a gun. The kid in FL should have been prevented by the current system. Banning and confiscating all guns can’t happen without a constitutional amendment and a civil war.

Solutions have to be lawful and advocates of banning guns have to stop scapegoating innocents and pretending that nothing bad would ever happen if life if only all the guns were gone. We need real solutions not magical thinking.

Just to demonstrate what happens when guns law go beserk: in Australia you need a Weapons Licence. Took my wife 12 months for hers to come through (OK she’s one of those “likely to go out of control Kiwis” 🙂 ). You need to have a “valid reason” to own one – farmer, hunter, shooting club member etc. Self defence is NOT a valid reason. Ridiculous.
Then to buy a rifle you need “Permission to Acquire” after you have chosen it. Took 3 months for a bolt action .22 with 5 round magazine. Then it gets Registered. Then the weapon must be stored in a secure gun cupboard (I mean it might take it into its mind to go and shoot someone , right?) and the police can come around to check on that without a warrant. of course the location is then compromised because there aren’t any bent coppers, ever, are there?
The details of you and the gun(s) are on a computer database. They NEVER, EVER get compromised do they?
In some semi-rural areas there have been “interesting” spates of gun thefts where the thieves clearly knew which properties to target.
A government would NEVER, EVER just confiscate weapons if there was civil unrest and law and order threatened to break down, would it?

“Just to demonstrate what happens when guns law go beserk: in Australia you need a Weapons Licence. Took my wife 12 months for hers to come through (OK she’s one of those “likely to go out of control Kiwis” 🙂 ). You need to have a “valid reason” to own one – farmer, hunter, shooting club member etc. Self defence is NOT a valid reason. Ridiculous.”

Red herring, the point is that school shooting have been going on for a long time, long before the 30 years you seem to think.

You give me a list that leads people to believe that school shootings mean that somebody goes into a school and mass murders people. The list includes incidents from the 1600s when an Indian goes into a school to kill someone.

That is a red herring. Nothing that even resembles a mass shooting appears until the 90s. Obviously, for anyone who pays attention, mass shootings are a modern phenomenon and require more rational thought than just blaming guns. Publicity and SSRI side effects come to mind.

I had another look at the list, while there are many examples that wouldn’t fit the “rampage shooter at a school, not university” there are also plenty of examples of rampage shooters at school going back the the ’60’s and far earlier.
You are right though that possibly the higher casualty rates of recent times is a result of more effective weapons in young hands, it used to be that handguns and bolt action hunting rifles were more easily acquired by students, now semiautomatic rifles are more likely to be the weapon of choice as the cost of guns relative to the expendable income of young people has dropped, making semiautomatic rifles more available.

Certainly there is more. The publicity, not just that that the individual might seek but also the fact that publicity on school shootings promotes them as the ultimate media horror event. Get infamous doing the most infamous thing possible.

Earlier I posted:“Yes, it would appear that ‘liberals’ don’t want to stop school shootings.” Hey, never let a crisis go to waste! A few more school shootings, a few more ineffective gun laws, then a few more school shootings, and finally–“Liberal” Nirvana!–total disarmament of the tax serfs, Another victory for Big Brother!”

It occurs to me that this paralells the Von Miseian scenario of how statists take over an economy. Government action causes problems, or exacerbates already existing problems; more and greater government action is called for as a solution; the “solution” only screws things up worse; so more government action is touted as the cure . . . and so it goes, until we’re living in the closing chapters of ATLAS SHRUGGED. Or Venezuela today.

The publicly released memo to his staff was in reaction to the fallout from the deadly South Florida high school shooting. Officials there later revealed the armed school resource officer on scene stayed outside the building while the shooting was occurring.

“We do not stage and wait for SWAT, we do not take cover in a parking lot, and we do not wait for another agency,” Sheriff Tracy Murphree wrote. “We go in and do our duty. We go in to engage and stop the shooter and save lives.”

“If for any reason you cannot follow this directive, please inform your supervisor and we will work to get you re-assigned,” Murphree wrote.

“The public expects us to protect them,” the Denton County sheriff said. “And the public expects us to be transparent in how we are going to do that.”

Retired Garland PD Detective Clint McNear is a current law enforcement consultant. He says many officers are now trained to go in alone.

“They don’t have the luxury of having two or three or four officers arriving within seconds,” he said. “And then it comes down to how long can you stand there and live with yourself hearing gunfire in an elementary school or middle school, knowing each shot is probably taking the life of a child.”

That’s all about ramping up the social pressure on officers to over come their instinct for self preservation, fear of dieing vs fear of being labeled a coward. Now they can have no doubt about whether or not society is going to forgive them if they don’t go in. It’s an effort to turn men into ants, to force them to go in without society having to spend the money on what would in other situations be considered the minimum in support and equipment to go in.
These are the debate where conservatives and real libertarians part company.

Personally I’d rather see these school safety officers in teams of at least two with far more training (swat training on at least a weekly basis) and swat equipment on hand as a confidence builder for them to go in rather than this distasteful (and gutless) social bullying, but then I’m not the cheap skate that would have to pay for the extra gear, training and man hours.

Society is demanding these guys provide SWAT team service on the cheap.

I don’t think it affects my argument at all.
There are about 100,000 public schools in the US, so there’s only a 1 in tens of thousands chance of a school safety officer facing something like this situation in any year. If they can work it, the smart officers are going to ask for other assignments because school patrolling is too boring rather than face the embarrassment in front of their colleagues of being afraid of such a small statistical risk of them ending up in that situation.

There’s a tiny risk to an officer when he/she takes the assignment, there’s a huge risk if a rampage shooting actually happens at that officers school.

“There are about 100,000 public schools in the US, so there’s only a 1 in tens of thousands chance of a school safety officer facing something like this situation in any year. If they can work it, the smart officers are going to ask for other assignments because school patrolling is too boring ….”

CLEARLY – so magnificently CLEARLY – you know nothing about the day to day life of a cop.

“…..rather than face the embarrassment in front of their colleagues of being afraid of such a small statistical risk of them ending up in that situation.”

Once again you attempt to convince us that YOU can read the mind of people who you’ve never met and don’t even know exist.

You wrote earlier in response to Chief Denton’s comments:

“That’s all about ramping up the social pressure on officers to over come their instinct for self preservation, ……”

Again you CLEARLY do not know what a cop’s life is like; how many of them and how often they have to pull their weapon; and what our society expects of them.

You persist in commenting about that which you demonstrably no absolutely nothing about.

Somewhere (I think on YouTube) I recently saw a video of libertarian rock-star Ted Nugent talking about the right to bear arms. I knew little about him except that he was supposed to be some “crazy man,” but actually he came across as passionate but rational–maybe because I agree with him. What I agreed most was his insistence on the right to bear arms whatever the 3nd Amendment said, or however it’s interpreted. He said something like, “I don’t need a piece of paper from the government telling me I have a right to defend myself, or how or what means I choose to do so.”

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page.Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser.